Questionnaire Results (Bar charts)

new charts

Magazine Questionnaire

Questionnaire

Target Audience Research

Target audience research

Week Eight

This week i have been researching further into my target audience and who i would like to aim my music magazine at. I have also created a pre-questionnaire for those within my target audince to answer. I wanted to do this as it means i will be able to grasp a better understanding of what they want and expect to be in magazines. It will also allowed me to see their opinions and what influences them when buying or not buying a magazine.

Flat plan for front cover

Conventions of a music magazine

Conventions of a music Magazine

Mood Board

Mood Board


I created this mood board so that I could see the different sort of themes that could be displayed throughout various music magazines. I will be able to look back at these pictures for inspiration or when I need help.
I will be able to also use this mood board as it seems to be very bright and colourful which could also be useful to me as it will help me look at what colours work well together and for an overall colour scheme.

Research into Competitors

Vibe Magazine: Vibe is a magazine which is based on both music and entertainment. The magazine was founded by Quincy Jones and mainly features R&B and hip hop artists as well as actors and other sorts of entertainers.

Vibes closest competitors are ‘the source’ and ‘XXL’ which focus more on rap and rock music. The magazine owes its success to featuring a broader range of interests than its competitors.

By looking at the front cover you are able to see that the magazine is aimed at older teenagers. There is always an image of a familiar pop artist on the front which is used to draw many readers in and make them want to read the magazine.

Vibe was described as ‘evangelical’ in its time, whilst creating a market for urban and giving fans of all colours an important touchstone for the culture. Vibe is a ‘streetwise magazine that celebrates and educates people about urban culture.’

Vibe magazine also focuses on art, style and social issues as well as focusing on the scene amongst hip hop music and discovering who made things happen.  

Publisher: Pro Circ RWD Magazine  RWD is a British magazine that consists of features news, charts on hip hop, R&B, UK garage, Drum, bass and US house music as well as interviews. RWD magazine distributes 36,040 copies each time and is also ABC certified. This magazine considers itself to be the largest UK urban music and lifestyle magazine. RWD does not only publish magazines but also has a website which features music videos, tracks and artist profiles. The magazine was very popular which soon spread on to its website. The founding editor-in-chief was Matt Mason. RWD magazine became a popular, well known music magazine within 2003, fitting in with the rise of a new urban music genre and later became referred to as grime. This magazine provided a space for new emerging artists who wanted to be noticed. This meant that these aspiring artists could pay to be featured in the magazine and the magazines good distribution and circulation made this seem more attractive. These are a couple magazines (vibe and RWD) which would be classed as the competition for my new music magazine as well as many others. These two magazines are both well known within the music industry and they are quite popular. I’d have to consider many aspects of my magazine and make sure I compare then to the competition for example price. Since many music magazines are around £3 - £4 I would make my magazine around £2.50 as i think this would be the most reasonable price and draw in more customers. I would also want to draw my readers in so I would consider adding additional free things. For example a free CD which would not cost a lot. Other magazines use images, layouts, colour schemes and cover lines to draw in readers. I would have to focus on all of these to make sure that my magazine would be the one that the readers want to read.

Analysing Magazine Covers

Analysing Magazine Coversnewone

Week Seven

I have spent quite a lot of time on the research for my magazine so by next week I would have liked to have started the actual construction of my magazine. I have designed a mood board with various emotions that would reflect the genre R’N’B which I have chosen. I have also included images which might relate to the stereotypical aspects of a R’N’B music magazine. I have also been looking closely at different magazine covers as well as teh conventions of a music magazine. This would be very useful to me as it will allow me to see what needs to be included in a magazine and the effect that each of these have. By knowing what the conventions of a music magazine are it will then allow me to incorporate them into my own magazine.
I have also been looking at the competition for my genre of music and aimed to see how other magazines such as 'vibe' seek to draw in and attract their customers.

Analysing colours

media, colours

Researching different fonts

For my magazine I wanted to research the different types of fonts used in magazines and which ones seem to be the most popular.
Magazines such as ‘Source’ use a large black font which is bold allowing it to be easy to read as well as stand out on the page. It’s conveyed to be quite ‘tough’ and ‘strong’ which also links into the models on the page which are always boys who try to also portray a ‘tough’ image.
 Another magazine such as ‘vibe’ used bold capital letters when portraying their name on their magazine. However it is not always in one specific colours and ranges from yellow, white, black and red. The model is almost always overlapping the text but because the font is big, it stills stands out from behind the model.
As the magazine ‘Q’ only contains one letter it is quite easy because you can put that letter as big as you want. It is surrounded by a box containing a red background, which allows us to see that it is the masthead of the magazine. The font is quite skinny but its still allows it to stand out to the readers.
I have decided to analyse a set of fonts so that my font will have the same effect as other magazines as well as allowing it to appeal to the readers.
As I already know the title of my magazine it will make it easier as it means I can test the different fonts with the name of my magazine which will allow me to see which one would suit it better.
I will show a variety of different fonts and then I can explain why I would choose the font or not.

  

To create these fonts I used dafont website to search for the best font for my music magazine. I searched through all of the fonts to explore the different types of fonts that had been created. I know which sort of fonts are used due to research on R&B magazines but I have incorporated other fonts just to show the reasons in which i would not use them and why they would not be used on other R&B magazines.

fonts

Analysing fonts on background

Analysing fonts on background

Week Six

Within this week i will be looking more closely at how fonts are used and which ones would be conveyed as the most popular. I have also beene experimenting with different fonts for example analysing them on particular backgorunds to see if they would fit in with the image.

I have also been analysing colours as different colours have many different meanings. Thi sis useful as it will allow me to gain an understadning of what my audidnce may pick up from the colours that I will be using. I have done further reserch on fonts and anlysed them

Exploring different shots and Shot list

I want to explore and research the different types of camera shots that music magazine use. This would be useful as it will allow me to see the different sorts of shots used and how effective they would be. I am going to include some of the shots that i might want to use within my magazine.

Extreme close up – This mainly includes a part of a characters face or an object. It is normally used within horror films to grasp expression with in eye and used for dramatic effect. This shot will not have any background detail.

Close up - contains just one character's face. This enables viewers to understand the actor's emotions and also allows them to feel empathy for the character. This is also known as a personal shot.

Medium shot – This just consists of the character from waist up. This allows the audience to see the characters facial expressions as well as some of their body language.

Long shot – This contains a full view of the character and allows the viewer to see the full body. This helps create a relationship between both the character and audience as well as being able to see the costumes

Magazines such as ‘vibe’ use a variety of camera shots such as medium shots and long shots. Even though these shots are sued to portray different meanings, each of the models used portray the same sort of ‘image’ so they convey the same sort of feeling towards the audience. 

By researching the different shots and looking at magazines with different camera shots, it allows me to see which camera shots would be more effective and gives me a better idea of which ones I would use.

Other camera shots would include:

Extreme long shot also known as establishing shot - It is normally used to show a large amount of landscape. It is when the camera is the furtehst distance from the landscape.

Medium long shot - This normally show the majority of a hcracter, mainly from head to knees. This allows you to see the environment as well as mutiple people interacting.

Medium close up - This is half way between a mid shot and a close up. This shot shows the face more clearly, without getting uncomfortably close. I chose a few locations< which i believed would be relevant and appropriate for me to take my pictures in. 

Han Shot List

Brainstorm

Week Five

This week I will be starting the research in preparation for my final magazine. Before I start looking into what I need to research I made a brainstorm to explore different aspects of what I need to consider before actually creating my magazine. For example the name of my magazine, the genre, colour scheme, target audience etc. I created this brainstorm by using www.bubbl.us. I have also been reseraching on the different kinds of camera shots that there are in  preparation for when i start taking my pictures for my final piece. This would help me as it will allow me to see the different ways in which i can frame my images.

Preliminary Contents

By creating this school magazine as my preliminary task it means that I was able to experiment with different sorts of software’s such as Microsoft publisher and Photoshop. By practising it meant that I would be able to learn quite a few of the functions which would be an advantage for me when it comes to my music magazine.
Also it means that I can then look back at this task and see what improvements i need to make and also incorporate these ideas into my final magazine.

·         I would think about the layout and design of the magazine instead of just placing text and images where I wanted to.

·         I would have to research on different texts and see which one are used as from the writing on this magazine it does not seem very professional

·         I would also make sure that I read through my work making sure there are not any spelling errors.

·         Id crop and edit my photos so that they take on a more professional look

·         I’d also have to think about the colour scheme as it is a very important aspect of a magazine.

My preliminary front cover

Preliminary reserach and software used

prelim research

Week Four

This week I have completed both my front page and contents page for my preliminary task. I have added on all the images and content I needed it and made sure that it was all relevant to my magazine. I made the contents page quite bright and stand out as the target audience for this would be students and I think that this would draw them in. I have now made any changes that I have wanted to make to my preliminary and will start to prepare for my music magazine by next week.